


The weight of our words unsaid could crush the moon

by liobi



Series: Skies of blue and red [2]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Coming Out, F/F, F/M, Gen, M/M, Pining, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-24
Updated: 2020-05-24
Packaged: 2021-03-02 20:13:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,683
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24352651
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/liobi/pseuds/liobi
Summary: On the balcony of their apartment, Dave knows there’s an elephant they’re not addressing. But when John actually does, Dave realizes that they have two entirely separate confessions to make.
Relationships: John Egbert/Dave Strider, John Egbert/Terezi Pyrope, June Egbert/Dave Strider, June Egbert/Terezi Pyrope
Series: Skies of blue and red [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2085726
Comments: 6
Kudos: 44





	The weight of our words unsaid could crush the moon

**Author's Note:**

> This is a follow-up to "If I bought you a star, would you give me the moon?" years later.

Dave doesn’t say a lot whenever he smokes out on the balcony. It’s an odd change of pace for someone who wrote texts like a Dickens novel and tended to mutter more words than typical for a legal document under his breath during every conversation he had.

He heard the door behind him slide open, getting stuck in its usual spot as John wiggled it free. He didn’t turn around. He didn’t say anything, preferring to take another slow drag off his cigarette.

John leaned on the railing, back to the street, his head turning upside down as he stared up at the partially cloudy night sky, the full moon stared back. “Are we going to talk?”

“What’s to talk about?” Dave tried to keep the glass out of his voice, sharp and messy and full of edges that would cut them both. “You’re dating my ex. We broke up like a year ago. It’s not my business. Not everything is a torrid opera doomed for tragedy Egbert, I don’t have any skulls in my room to return to, waxing poetic lines such as ‘alas, the poor ghost of my boner, forever lost to the sands of time.’ It’s fine.”

His chest heaved with a great sigh, and Dave absolutely did not stare as John swallowed, his adam's apple moving up and down as if it was writhing under the caress of the moonlight that now engulfed nearly the entirety of John’s torso. “I absolutely do not believe you, but you don’t give me much choice here.”

“Terezi’s a good egg in a basket of crazy. She’s getting her PhD in law.” He’d once seen her charge across the UW campus to trip someone with her cane when they went to see the cherry blossoms bloom. Well, he went to see, she went to “enjoy the smell and also the sounds of people clearly too allergic to be there but suffering anyways.”

“I’m more dangerous _because_ I’m blind, David. No one can disarm me, a poor blind girl. I am always armed.” Terezi had cackled at that, her manic energy and too-sharp canines had been hard to resist getting wrapped up in. Dave was ten thousand percent sure that she was using her cane incorrectly and had also modified it to be better at that misuse.

“I have no doubt she will eventually successfully defend her thesis on bringing back public capital punishment, becoming a terror in the courtroom, only to be eventually disbarred for telling a judge to do a backflip during a serious trial.” John laughed at this, and Dave sallied forwards. “Your honor, if you truly had any passion for the law you would jump at the chance to do a sick fucking back flip. The honor, the applause, the balls to say you not only are the master of legal laws, but also of gravity. And that will be the end of Terezi.”

“Oh man, yeah, she would. She absolutely would.” John finally stopped looking at the moon, instead bringing his deep blue eyes to meet Dave's. Shit. “Hopefully I’ll be there that day. It’ll be raining. I’ll jump in a puddle too close to her.”

“I’m sorry, what?”

John grabs the cigarette from you, inhaling the last of it right down to the filter. “I kinda want to push her down a hill, but in a hot way? It’s also the same for her?”

“I’m gonna repeat myself like I’m doing an impression of Bill Murray and it’s Groundhog Day. I’m sorry, fucking what?”

“Hm, let me think for a second.” John paused and idly flicked the filter into the flowerpot that had become the makeshift receptacle for the spent cancer tubes. “You know the feeling like when you want to beat someone at laser tag and then rub it in their face and maybe make out with them? And you’ll be mad but not too mad if it happens the other way around?”

“Uh, no?” Terezi had been wild, leaving bite marks all over Dave that lasted for weeks on end. But this sounded like it had evolved to a whole new level of weird. A level of weird that for some reason merited John holding eye contact with him. It took all his conscious effort to keep his heart rate from having any external tell. No blushes, nary even an uneven breath. Dave was as cool as fucking cucumber soup with ice cubes. 

“God, you are so weird Egbert.” Dave stepped around so as to not accidentally brush his roommate when he went to open the door back inside. He froze. There was heat on his forearm, an unfamiliar firm but gentle pressure as John’s hand prevented Dave fleeing to retain some semblance of composure.

John’s voice was quiet. Composure be damned, Dave’s heart had just joined the Kentucky Derby and was fast enough to be a sure winning bet. His mind was so full of racing thoughts they could fill the entirety of the Dallas marathon and then some. “I did actually come out here for another reason.”

This couldn’t be happening, not the moment he had resentfully dreamt about ever since Egbert had nearly fucked someone on their table on Thanksgiving years ago. The impossible couldn’t happen. Right? “Careful Egbert, a gal could think you’re about to propose. Do you already have a suit? Have you practiced being the perfect bridegroom?” Genius, Dave. Deflect with panicked humor. Was that even funny? He couldn’t tell.

“I’d probably be practicing being a bride, actually.” Dave turned, confused, but stopped dead when he saw his roommate’s face. Unsure, a little scared, a lopsided smile as a poor defense mechanism.

“What-”

“Also I’m gonna be going by June from now on.” Oh. _Oh._ Oh shit.

“Oh shit.” Dave said out loud and immediately felt like kicking himself. “What are you- what should I- okay so June, what else-”

“Turns out I’m a girl.” Dave’s roommate－June, Dave immediately reminds himself. His roommate’s name is June and she’s a girl－throws some halfhearted jazz hands in, a self conscious grin crawling across her face. “Surprise!”

Dave’s previous racing thoughts were replaced with different ones, and stupidly the one he picked was “Does Terezi know?”

“She was actually the one who encouraged me to tell you.” That stung a little. 

A lot, actually. How long had June known Dave? They were roommates for fuck’s sake, and she told the girl she’d been maybe-dating for a few months before she told him. But he stopped that thought. He took a deep breath. This wasn’t about him. She’d just come out. He had to say _something._

“So when are we taking a trip to Sephora?” Shit, why had he chosen _that?_ He had to commit. “I’ll be your hype man. Look out folks, June Egbert, future beauty pageant winner coming though. Get a close look now, this is just the beginning part of Princess Diaries. Pretty soon she’s gonna be ruling Barovia and you can say you met the queen once.”

June full on laughs and _god_ Dave remembers once again how smitten he is with this woman. “Oh my god please never do that. I would rather eat custard pies for the rest of my life. Also I'm pretty sure Barovia is a vampire thing, not Princess Diaries.”

“Hey, your loss. I don’t offer my hype man services to just anyone.”

“I’ll keep that in mind when looking for an MC for my wedding.” Dave ignores the needles that slowly infest his rib cage. “Hey do you think we should ask Rose for fashion advice?”

He shudders at the image of Rose giving June fashion advice. “My sister’s expertise lies somewhere between mistress of darkness and prophet of the eldritch horrors that lurk in shadows of alleyways.”

“So kind of a Pike Place at midnight vibe?”

“Yes, and I’m sure if you _did_ take her fashion advice you would immediately commit some sort of goth sacrilege, the likes of which you would never recover from.” Dave shudders, exaggerating for theatrical effect. “Rose would have no choice but to enlist the very best assassins, perhaps even causing a truce between the emo and scene kids in the process. Just think, a unified collective of people dressed in Hot Topic merch from ten years ago.”

“Hey, I happen to think I could pull off brooding goth girl masterfully. It would be like being undercover.”

“You also thought no one would recognize you in Groucho Marx glasses, and yet mysteriously they did.” June huffs, but gives up the bit. “You gonna tell your dad?”

June took a deep breath and let it out in a prolonged sigh. “He and Jade are next.”

“Hey Jade’s got her own stuff going on, I doubt she’d be any less than absolutely thrilled to find out she has a sister.”

“Yeah.”

“And your dad? That man is going to bake you twenty-five cakes all at once to make up for lost birthdays that June didn’t have, properly anyways.”

“Oh god, he totally will.” June looked mortified, but in a way full of humor. She relaxed somewhere around “twenty-five cakes” and looked much better for it. “Terezi was right. I’m glad I told you.”

The needles were back, filling his ribs so full they started puncturing into Dave’s lungs, making his chest hurt. His stomach felt like it was full of lead. It was _her_ that had helped June move forwards, had given her courage. _She_ was the reason he now knew June better. Terezi now filled up such a big part of June’s life, and Dave had been the one to introduce them.

He doesn’t say “Why do you never choose me? Why aren’t I an option?”

What he does say is “Wanna go to Cap’ Hill? There’s a dive I know that’s named after a Midwestern state, they’ve got good drinks. I’m just meeting the new you, first round’s on me.”

She looks back at him. “Sure.”

Dave gives a stiff half smile, and June laughs from her stomach all night and they don’t say anything important.

**Author's Note:**

> June Egbert is canon? Might as well write some Dave pining for her and being too nervous to actually take his shot. Too bad, June may have said yes.


End file.
